


let her be soft (and let her be mine)

by sunnylittleyang



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, volume 8 compliant, written prior to the release of chapter 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:13:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29186862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunnylittleyang/pseuds/sunnylittleyang
Summary: They had the weight of the world on their shoulders, and they’d already been torn apart by so many hardships. As Yang marched toward her potential death, Blake wished that for once, they could just be Blake and Yang. Not the tragic heroes from Beacon Academy, destined to save the world by destroying themselves in the process, but two best friends who were in love and wanted nothing more than to be together in peace.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 7
Kudos: 132





	let her be soft (and let her be mine)

_ Dear God, _

_ You have already made an Atlas, you have already made an Achilles and an Icarus and a Hercules. _

_ You have already made so many heroes, and you can make another again. _

_ You can have your pick of heroes. _

_ So please, I beg you, he is all that I have, and you have so many heroes and the world has so many more. _

_ ~ Please, let him be happy (j.p.) _

_ ═ _

Bomb. Whale. Atlas.  _ Yang. _

Those few words had been sprinkled into Winter’s message to Weiss, but she could barely register the full sentences, she didn’t need the full context. Those words being used in the same message were enough to completely halt the beating of her heart, to send the blood rushing to her head as time seemed to stop entirely.

Blake was no stranger to fear, especially not fear in regards to Yang, but nothing compared to the paralyzing horror that she felt running through her body the second she realized what was going on and why nobody had been able to get in contact with Yang since she left.

_ Yang, Jaune, and Ren were headed into Salem’s whale to rescue Oscar. The same whale that was currently spitting out Grimm. The same whale that Winter had revealed she and the Ace Ops were prepping to blow up, regardless of whether Yang and the others were still inside or not. _

This was a different kind of fear, so unlike anything she’d ever felt before. She thought she’d never been more terrified than when Adam was looming over her threateningly as Beacon Academy fell around them, when Yang was laying on the ground unconscious with her aura bleeding out of the gaping wound in her right arm.

Ruby, Weiss, and Blake had all vehemently protested the order from Ironwood, bargaining to just give them a bit more time and let Yang and the others get to safety before they dropped the bomb. But all of the arguing had all been fruitless in the end, with Winter insisting that orders were orders and Ironwood was already angry enough that she had let Yang, Jaune, and Ren go after having them detained. They were all infuriated, but Winter at least did sound sincerely sorry for not being able to help any further than she already had (though Weiss had to hold Blake and Ruby back from yelling when they heard Harriet make a comment in the background about them “already signing their death warrants”).

It took all three of Weiss, Blake, and May to keep Ruby from falling out of her bedside and running with her own two feet to where Salem’s whale currently lay residence, and admittedly, it took all of Blake’s own self restraint to keep from doing the same. Ruby was still injured from a surprise attack by Cinder and a new Grimm, one that the former woman had simply called “the Hound”. 

Blake knew how much emotional pain Ruby was in; between the news of Penny being hacked by Watts and the new knowledge that her friends and her sister were on a suicide mission, she felt useless laying in bed and resting while the people she loved were in unimaginable danger.

And  _ god _ , did the current situation hurt Blake too. Staring at Penny, currently laying in a bed adjacent to Ruby’s in a spare bedroom in the Schnee Manor, she felt her heart ache. But that heartache was nothing compared to what the certain situation with Yang, Jaune, Ren, and Oscar made her feel.

The only thing really keeping her in control at the moment was Ruby. The girl was practically incoherent, both out of physical exhaustion and emotional anguish. Blake had to keep it together for her, the girl who had already lost a mother, countless friends, and now possibly a sister.

The thought made Blake physically ill, but she pushed the intrusive thoughts and the worst case scenarios back. Seeing Blake sick with worry would only serve to further make Ruby feel worse than she already did.

The world-altering call from Winter came while the world as they knew it ended, Grimm screeched and smoke filled the once bustling streets of Atlas. Ruby had finally fallen asleep, her head in Weiss’s lap as the heiress gently ran her fingers through her hair, though she shot up with a start the second she heard the ringtone from Weiss’s scroll.

The white-haired girl fumbled with her scroll, her hands shaking as she finally managed to slide the button and answer the call. “Winter…?” She asked tentatively, her gaze moving from Ruby to Blake to May. “What’s going on? I thought you said you weren’t going to call again.”

Blake’s cat ears twitched on the top of her head as she heard the elder Schnee sister suck in a breath on the other end, clearly sounding stressed. “I know. I didn’t plan on having to call again, but clearly I was thinking from the perspective of the best case scenario, which is unfortunately not playing out like we had hoped.”

Blake froze.

“Winter, what do you mean? What’s going on? What ‘best case scenario’?” Ruby started firing off questions from Weiss’s side, sitting up with a groan and eventually taking the scroll from her partner’s hand.

Gold eyes met silver, and Blake had a feeling that they both knew the answer. But it was the answer that they were all dreading, that they had all thought about but didn’t dare speak into existence in fear of it coming true.

Winter’s silence was answer enough, but she continued before the implications of that silence could settle in on any members of the group.

“My orders from the general are clear. He’s angry enough at me as is, I cannot disobey him any more than I already have. The bomb is ready, and I have immediate orders to drop it on Salem’s whale. But your sister and friends still haven’t emerged.”

Blake suddenly couldn’t breathe. She was familiar with panic attacks, but this was so much more than that. It was like the whole world was collapsing, in a completely different and more devastating way than it already was. True to their team dynamic, she noticed within the next few moments, Blake stopped functioning as a result of her panic while Ruby fought through it viciously.

“Winter, you can’t! Jaune, Ren, and Oscar are still in there... my  _ sister _ is still in there! Can’t you just go in and help get them out and then deploy the bomb? Or just hold off and let us go in and help them get out! We could get there quickly if I use my semblance, with all of us we easily outnumber anyone who would be inside the whale. We can get them out quickly and then you can do what you need to do after we’re out of the area, we can make it work! Or we could-”

“You know I can’t do that, Ruby.” Winter spoke up, breaking into the younger girl’s desperate rambling. “I’ve already bent the rules in your friends’ favor as much as I can. Even if I refused to follow orders, the general could easily replace me with someone who  _ will _ get the job done. The outcome would be the same regardless of whether I were involved or not.”

“There has to be some other way!” Ruby shot back, tears springing from her eyes. Blake’s heart broke as her ears picked up on Ruby’s quickening, panicked breathing. “What if it was Weiss in Yang’s place, huh? Would you be able to do what you’re doing now?”

It was a low blow and they all knew it, but none of them could fault Ruby for the comparison. 

“This is different. It’s not my sister, and I have a job to do.” Winter sounded tense on the other end, and it was obvious that Ruby’s blow hit exactly as she wanted it to. She was dodging the question, and unfortunately they all knew the answer.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” The scythe-wielder shot back, disdain clear in her voice as she spoke over the sob building up in her throat. Weiss took Ruby’s hand in hers from where she was sitting next to her on the bed, visibly flinching as the next words came out of her partner’s mouth. “You’re just a coward who’s too afraid to stand up to Ironwood and defend what’s right.”

Silence.

“I wish I could do more to help, but my orders are clear. My hands are tied, I’ve done all I can. I’m sorry.” That was all Winter said, and the regret was clear in her voice. But the regret didn’t make up for the fact that she was resigning Yang, Jaune, Ren, and Oscar to their deaths. The scroll  _ dinged _ as she hung up on the other end.

Ruby sank to her knees and loud sobs rang out throughout the large bedroom as she covered her face in her hands. Weiss fell to the floor next to her, wrapping her up in her arms as tears fell down her own cheeks.

But Blake, for the first time since that day on the waterfall in Argus, decided she was going to fight back. She swallowed down her fear and forced her body to move forward, darting straight toward the door and yanking it open, stalking down the darkened halls of the Schnee Manor. The shrill screeches of Grimm outside were haunting, but they were nothing compared to the horror that was about to take place at the edge of Atlas if Blake didn’t move, and  _ now _ .

“Blake? Blake!” She heard Weiss calling after her, and she only briefly turned her head to see her practically falling out of the doorway with a still sobbing Ruby tucked under her arm. “Where are you going?!”

“It’s not ending like this. She stated sharply, spinning around to face her teammates. She saw May standing at the end of the hall with a confused look on her face, but Blake was addressing only Ruby and Weiss with her next statement. “We’re going to that whale and saving our friends, regardless of what Winter and the Ace Ops plan to do. I  _ won’t _ sit here while Yang and the others run off on a suicide mission.”

The next part was spoken slightly softer, not meant for anybody else’s ears but loud enough for them to still hear it. “I promised Yang I wouldn’t run away again. She’s had to play the hero too many times before, I won’t let her kill herself doing this. Not now, not ever.” She gritted her teeth and fought the tears back, telling herself that this was no time to cry. “And Jaune, Ren, Oscar... They didn’t sign up for this either. We’re gonna save them, and when we’re done, we’re gonna kick Salem’s ass back to that tower.”

Weiss and Ruby locked eyes, with the latter nodding firmly as she wiped at her eyes, shakily separating from the former as she turned and met Blake’s hardened gaze. “You’re right. We’ve come this far. I  _ won’t  _ lose my sister, and I  _ won’t  _ lose anymore friends.”

“Where you guys go, I go.” Weiss stated simply, brushing her skirt off as she stood up taller. “If my sister won’t do anything, then we will. We’re gonna go save our friends.”

Blake nodded, and called out loudly to May, who was still standing in the corridor at the other end of the hall. “May, you stay here and watch over Nora and Penny! We’ve made our choice... we’re gonna stop this bomb and save Yang and the others.” 

May shrugged, and while they could tell that she wasn’t pleased with the outcome after all the planning she had put into following in Robyn’s stead, they were glad that she understood that this was necessary. There was no negotiating, not when their friends’ lives were on the line.

“I figured as much.” She said, turning on her heel and headed back to the room where Nora and Penny were both currently lying unconscious. “And while I can’t say I’m happy about the lack of a plan... I understand. And I trust all of you to do what needs to be done.”

Blake’s lips curved up into a smile, or at least as much of a smile as she could afford under the current circumstances, as she regarded the older woman’s words. She turned back and ran towards the stairs leading to the front doors of the mansion, determination running rampant through her veins as she pushed open the doors, hearing Ruby and Weiss directly at her heels.

_ I’m coming, Yang. _

_ ═ _

To be honest, Yang was having a shitty day. Even then, “shitty” didn’t exactly give justice to all the horrible things that had gone down in the past 24 hours.

First, Ironwood had declared martial law and abandoned the citizens of Mantle in a cowardly effort to do what he thought was the best choice for Atlas. Then, Yang had a fight with her sister and separated from her teammates as a result of their different opinions of how to proceed with their plan to save Atlas as a result of Ironwood’s choices. To top it all off; while she, Jaune, Ren, and Oscar were evacuating Mantle (which had actually been going well), a brand new Grimm that could was smart and could  _ talk _ showed up and took Oscar back to Salem’s whale. Afterward, after getting stuck in the cold tundra after failing to save Oscar, Atlas’s defenses failed and Slame’s whale landed on Atlas, unleashing an endless amount of Grimm onto the once safe streets of Atlas.

Now here they were, stuck in Salem’s whale, Jaune carrying an extremely badly injured Oscar despite his own injuries after a face-off against Hazel while Yang and Ren desperately tried to get a signal on their scrolls in hopes of contacting someone.

Surprisingly, Emerald had been their savior. As it turned out, she was finally starting to see the light and question everything about her longtime loyalty to Salem, until she finally decided that she wanted out. The result was a compromise between the Beacon group and Emerald; Emerald would help them escape from the whale before Winter’s group dropped the bomb as long as they agreed to let her and Hazel, who had finally come to his senses and agreed to defect from Salem’s forces after Emerald reached out to him, come with them.

Yang and Jaune had been hesitant, to say the least. But after Ren vouched for the two of them and reassured them that both of them were genuine, a new upgrade that his semblance gave him that Yang didn’t have the time to question, they agreed. They’d need all hands on deck to get back out, especially since Yang and the others had absolutely no idea when the bomb was going to be dropped.

Timed perfectly, a message from Winter came through on Yang’s scroll right as they finished negotiating their makeshift peace treaty and figuring out who would be leaving the whale and how they would go about doing it.

“We’re moving in.” She had said, quickly and straight to the point, and Yang could hear the underlying worry and desperation in the woman’s voice as she followed with, “If you hurry, you can still make it out in time.”

“We’re on our way out now.” Yang responded, eyeing the group in front of her as she felt her heart speed up slightly. It was a race against the clock now. “We’ve got Oscar and we’re bringing a few...  _ new acquaintances _ out.” She said slowly, trying to figure out a title to give Emerald and Hazel. “If you see it, give the Ace Ops orders not to attack. We’ve made a truce, and they’re helping us get out.”

Winter was silent for a moment, but thankfully didn’t ask for any clarification on what her request meant. “Alright. I’ll buy you as much time as I can, but I hope you understand that my options are limited.”

“Yeah, I get it.” Yang stated, and deep down, she did. As angry as she was at Ironwood and the Ace Ops and even Winter herself, to some degree, Yang understood. She didn’t at first, but Ren’s words on the airship had dug into Winter in a very physical and noticeable way. She  _ wanted  _ to help Yang and the others, for Weiss at least if not for anyone else, but she was already risking enough. 

The world was in absolute chaos, and frankly, Yang didn’t have the time nor energy to hold a grudge. She just wanted to get Oscar and get out of here, regroup with her sister and Blake and Weiss and everyone else, and figure out where to go from here. Hopefully, the bomb would at least temporarily set Salem back, at least for long enough to let them get the Relic of Knowledge back and make it to Vacuo to make sure that the relic there was safe.

“Stay safe, Yang.” Winter finished before hanging up. Yang shoved her scroll back in her pocket and turned to Emerald and Hazel. “You guys know the layout of this place, lead the way.”

_═_

Ruby used her semblance to carry the two of them as far as she could, but unfortunately, her aura was still low as a result of her fight against Cinder and the Hound and they didn’t make it that far into Atlas before they had to stop and continue on foot. As they proceeded, they fell into a comfortable pattern of flanking Ruby on both sides, who was still too exhausted to fight, as they shot their weapons through Grimm and carried onward.

Blake’s sides were beginning to cramp, her lungs restricting as she pushed herself to her limit. She looked over at Weiss briefly as she ran, and she could see a similar look of fatigue painted on the heiress’s own expression. Blake felt like collapsing, but the need and drive she felt to get to Yang and the others outweighed any weariness she wanted to succumb to.

She was so close, she could see the whale and all of the Grimm pooling out of its mouth, and with every stride, she was one step closer to Yang. And with their current situation, every second counted. One second they wasted was one second closer to danger for Yang and the others.

They kept pushing on until they finally reached the peak of the hill overlooking the open field on the edge of Atlas where Salem’s whale had landed and taken residence as it released Grimm into the kingdom. 

The sight was even more gruesome and terrifying than any of them possibly could’ve imagined. The first thing that Blake took notice of it was how  _ massive _ the leviathan-like Grimm was up close and personal. Every few seconds its mouth would open, crashing loudly against the ground as hoards of Grimm pooled out of its mouth, accompanied with a disgusting looking black substance, one that she only assumed was a matter that was in some way physically associated with the Grimm.

Blake’s worry only increased as she took in the size of the Grimm, thinking about how enormous the inside of it was. She imagined Yang and the others, completely lost inside as they knew they were on an incredibly dire time limit, and her heart halted to a stop inside her chest. Swallowing down her fear, she turned to look back at her teammates. 

“We’ll have to find another entrance. Blake explained. “Our auras are all too low to fight anymore Grimm, and even with fully charged auras, the four of us wouldn’t stand a chance against all of the Grimm coming out of that thing. I have no idea how Yang and the others got in, but-”

Blake’s words were cut off abruptly by the sound of an airship flying overhead, and the sound of jets whirring and something falling through the air overpowering the loud wails of the Grimm running off to the side in the direction of Atlas.

She barely had time to register what it was that she was hearing before she was screaming, a loud  _ boom _ rocking the clearing as all three girls were blown back and onto the ground, their ears ringing as they struggled to gather their bearings.

Blake’s head was throbbing and both sets of her ears were ringing, the ears atop her head more sensitive than her human ones, but what she was feeling physically was nothing compared to what she was feeling emotionally.

The feeling was too strong for her to perceive what had just happened, the reality that she was now forced to live in. It almost didn’t feel real at all, like an out of body experience or an extremely vivid nightmare. 

As she forced her arms to push her off the ground, feeling a bit dizzy as she steadied herself, she looked out at the now empty clearing, obfuscated with smoke and leftover dust. The whale was nowhere in sight; blown to smithereens, as were all the grimm that had been in the immediate zone of the blast. She realized that this  _ was  _ a nightmare, but not one that she would be able to wake up from.

She wouldn’t wake up, shaking and sweating as she slipped to the bunk directly above her and curled up under the covers next to her partner. She’d never feel Yang slip an arm around her waist and press her face into the space between Blake’s ears while she slept, as though wrapping her body around Blake was second nature. As though she was so familiar with Blake’s body and how their forms fit together as perfectly as a puzzle that she could hold her and mold against her figure while she was unconscious without even having to think about it.

She’d never get to be like that with her again, and that thought hit her like a truck.

Ruby’s loud screams and heaving sobs as she fell to the ground finally broke Blake out of her disassociated state. Weiss fell beside the former, pulling her into her arms as she choked on her own tears and wept silently. 

Blake couldn’t breathe. Blake couldn’t even  _ think.  _ She felt the tears pouring down her face but barely registered them as she stood on the edge of the hill, golden eyes wide and body shivering and shaking violently. 

The shock eventually wore off and Blake collapsed to the ground, her knees colliding with the earth harshly. But she couldn’t register the pain as she instead finally registered the gut-wrenching scene in front of her. Yang was gone. Jaune and Ren and Oscar were gone. They had been too late,  _ she  _ had been too late. She had failed Yang and the rest of her friends.

“No… no no no no no… no…..” She repeated softly, denial setting in as a coping mechanism. This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening.

The agony she felt was so unlike anything she had ever felt before. Worse than when she had run from Adam for the first time, when she had watched as Adam stood over a bleeding Yang with a gaping hole where her right arm had been, when she and Yang had to end it once and for all that day on the Argus waterfall, when Ironwood declared martial law and labelled the beacon huntsmen as wanted fugitives. It was even worse than when Salem’s whale had landed on the floating kingdom of Atlas and began unleashing Grimm onto the bustling streets of Mantle.

Because during all of these situations, despite it all, Yang had come back. But she wasn’t coming back from this, and that realization came with the most excruciating pain that Blake had ever felt.

Ruby lost her sister, the girl who threw aside her own childhood to raise her at a too young age after already losing so much herself and loved Ruby more than anything in the world. Weiss had lost a teammate and a best friend, one of the few people to ever bring her out of her shell and see her as more than just the name she carried. 

Blake had lost her other half, the woman whose smile could light up even Blake’s darkest nights, who stood by her through thick and thin and helped her find the person she was before Adam destroyed everything that she used to be. Her partner, who she had been in love with for so long but never acted on it out of fear of rejection, who taught her what it really felt like to love and be loved and to be the center of someone’s world.

She had never believed in soulmates. But now, curled up on the ground as the sound of Ruby and Weiss’s wails filled the newfound silence of the area, feeling as though a part of her had just been violently ripped out of her chest, Blake finally realized that they were real, and Yang had been hers. 

She finally let the sobs rip out of her, screaming, “ _ YANG!!!!”  _ as she held her face in her hands and let all of the suffering and misery that she was feeling pour out of her.

She didn’t know how long they all laid there, cries and whimpers echoing through the wind as the dust and the aftermath of the bomb cleared. At some point, Winter and the Ace Ops had landed on the grass behind them, but none of them spoke to each other, they only looked out sadly at the spot where the whale and their friends had once been.

It wasn’t until Winter said, “Guys, look…” softly and pointed at the smoke finally settled and the open field became more clear in view that any of them so much as moved.

Blake lifted her head just enough to see where the elder Schnee sister was pointing, and while the sight might’ve been hard for anyone else to see, the sight was unmistakable to Blake’s faunus senses.

Six figures sat in the middle of the clearing where the massive Grimm had once laid. She could vaguely pick out green hair, a man with a massive build, a small boy cradled in the arms of a taller boy wearing armor, a long black braid, and she let out a soft gasp of recognition when her eyes landed on a head of messy blonde hair that she would able to identity anywhere.

She didn’t dare get her hopes up as she sat up, her raspy voice just barely managing to get out the name, “Y-Yang...?”, in between her tears. She almost would’ve believed that she was hallucinating had Winter not been the one to point the group out. 

One of the figures stood up, one that Blake now identified as Ren, and before Blake could even blink, a massive swirl of red petals had darted past her, and Ruby’s voice was clear as day as she yelled out, “YANG!!!! Jaune!! Ren!! Oscar!!”

Blake nearly tripped over herself in her hurry to get to her feet. Weiss was already running past her, following the path of rose petals that covered the ground where Ruby had flown by.

Then she was running. Her sides cramped and she nearly fell multiple times, but her desperation to reach Yang, knowing that she was alive and  _ there _ , overpowered any physical fatigue that her body told her to give into.

By the time she reached the group that they had all formerly thought dead, Ruby was already curled up in Yang’s arms, sobbing apologies as Yang cradled the back of her sister’s head and promised her that she was okay. Blake noticed Weiss only by the white hair peeking out, as the heiress was hugging Yang from behind.

Blake simply stood there, her chest constricting as she suddenly got the fear that this was all some cruel trick that the world was playing on her, planning on giving her the one person she loved the most back before cruelly snatching her away again.

Eventually, Ruby and Weiss both pulled away, migrating over to greet Jaune, Ren, and Oscar. Blake briefly took notice of Emerald and Hazel, but she didn’t have it in her to ask any questions about it.

Yang finally looked up, her gaze meeting her partner’s, and Yang’s face instantly broke into the softest and most beautiful smile that Blake had ever seen. At that moment, Blake let the relief wash over her. Not even the most powerful being in the world could conjure up an image of Yang half as breathtaking as she actually was, and looking at the girl whose facial features she could map better than her own, she knew that this was real.

She crumpled to the ground, knowing that Yang would catch her, and she did. Their bodies collided, and they fit together just as perfectly as Blake remembered. Yang tucked her face into the crook of Blake’s neck, right where her black hair brushed her shoulders, and she breathed out a sigh of relief as her arms wrapped around Blake’s waist. Blake had her one face in a similar position and her nails dug into Yang’s back as she desperately clung to her partner, but Yang didn’t seem to notice. She vaguely realized that she was straddling Yang, but neither of them cared what position they were in as long as they were pressed as closely together as they could possibly be.

They finally pulled apart after a few minutes of holding each other and relishing in the solace that they were both alive and that they were together again. Blake’s hands found Yang’s cheeks and her face fell as her fingers brushed over her bloody and bruised cheeks. Her heart cracked even more when she gently ran her fingers over a nasty cut over Yang’s brow and she hissed in pain.

“I’m okay.” Yang stated simply, her flesh hand reaching up to brush a bit of hair behind Blake’s human ear. Her hand traced her jawline until she was cupping Blake’s cheek, and Blake tilted her head toward where Yang was holding her as she brought her own hand up to fall on top of Yang’s.

Blake wasn’t sure whether she leaned in first or Yang did, or maybe they both felt the pull and collided in the middle. But their lips met and they were kissing, and Blake  _ melted _ .

It was both desperate in nature and soft, years of yearning and pining and stolen glances when they thought the other wasn’t looking had all led up to this one moment. Blake’s arms cupped the back of Yang’s neck and she pulled the other woman closer to her as Yang’s arms wrapped around her waist again. 

Blake could swear, in that moment, that she was born exactly for this moment. Every single ounce of pain, every hardship, every battle, was leading up to the greatest reward. As Yang’s lips moved against her own, Blake felt like she was coming home. She  _ was _ coming home, and that home was the beautiful blonde sitting underneath her and breathing against her, their heartbeats and their souls dancing in unison and harmony.

There was nobody else in the world. No Salem, no Cinder, no Ironwood. It was just Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long, finding and falling in love with each other all over again.

They pulled apart breathlessly, coming up for air. But they didn’t stray far, Yang’s hands stayed planted firmly on Blake’s hips and Blake’s hands moved up to tangle in Yang’s hair as they bumped their foreheads together, just like they did back when they both casted out their shared demon and found salvation in each other.

“I thought you were dead.” Blake broke the comfortable silence, tears slipping down her reddened cheeks. “Winter called us and told us what was going on, and then the bomb went off and I thought that I was too late and that I had lost you for good this time and-”

Yang cut Blake off by pressing another kiss to her lips, laughing lowly as she pulled away. “We just barely made it out. Emerald and Hazel helped us find our way out, and we managed to get far enough away from the center of the blast.”

“I can’t do this without you.” Blake admitted, shaking her head. “I’ve already almost lost you too many times and this time I thought that I really did, and it was the most terror and pain that I’ve ever felt in my life.” She pulled her face away from Yang’s, hoping that the look in her eyes would be enough to convey her feelings. “I love you too much to go on knowing that you won’t be by my side like you always have been. And I thought that you had died without me never getting to tell you how I feel.”

Yang hummed, but didn’t seem shocked by the admission. “Looks like we’re in the same boat, then.” She said, adjusting Blake’s position in her lap. “I tried to get a signal on my scroll on our way out, but I couldn’t. I just wanted to talk to you and Ruby and Weiss one last time in case I didn’t make it out. If I was going to die, I wanted to at least die knowing that I had told you that I’m in love with you.”

They had kissed and all but actually said it, but Yang’s words still made Blake feel like a giddy schoolgirl with a crush. She wrapped her arms around Yang and pulled her back in for a hug. “Well, luckily for you, we both know. And I don’t plan on ever leaving your side ever again, so you’ll  _ never  _ have to have a worry like that again.”

Blake squeaked as Yang pressed her lips against Blake’s neck, trailing kisses from her neck, to her jawbone, to her cheek, and eventually to her mouth. “Well good, because you’re stuck with me.” Yang voiced. She was attempting a joke, but her tone was too soft and heartfelt for it to land properly.

Blake giggled, rubbing her cheek against Yang’s. “Yeah, I think I can live with that.”

Yang kissed Blake one more time before finally pulling them both to their feet. But despite the change in position, Blake didn’t go far. She stayed firmly pressed against Yang’s side, one arm around her waist so she could help burden some of Yang’s weight, her partner wincing as she put pressure on her left leg.

Blake turned and offered a relieved smile to Jaune, Ren, and Oscar as she said, “I’m glad you’re all okay.” She even extended her smile to Emerald and Hazel because, while they still had so much to discuss and work out, the two of them had helped save Yang’s life, and that was enough to deserve Blake’s gratitude.

The group started toward the hill, and they knew that they’d need to head back to the Schnee Manor to regroup and figure out their next move. But as Yang cracked a joke next to her that made the rest of them laugh, Blake knew that they would all be okay in the end. As long as she had Yang by her side, she knew that all was well.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, i hope you enjoyed this!! i'm so nervous for what the second half of volume 8 has to offer, hopefully whatever pain there is will include a bees kiss.


End file.
